What does the exploding pager attack mean for air travel?

Aviation authorities in Lebanon have banned passengers from boarding planes with pagers and walkie-talkies or checking in luggage. No other country has followed suit so far, and passengers can expect business as usual when passing through airport security.

Jeffrey Price, a professor of aviation security at Metropolitan State University of Denver who also consults for airports and trains airport security personnel, said scanners at U.S. airports are designed to detect devices similar to those that exploded in Lebanon. Checked bags are also scanned with the same technology.

A Transportation Security Administration spokesman said the agency currently has no plans to ban its counterparts in Lebanon from using pagers and other devices on flights departing from U.S. airports.

He said the agency “uses a variety of technologies, processes and methods to detect and screen for explosives, even trace amounts, and other dangerous threats.”

Could TSA ban pagers on flights?

There is precedent for TSA restrictions on electronic devices on airplanes. The agency continues to restrict passengers from packing many electronic devices, such as lithium batteries found in portable chargers and laptops, in checked baggage.

Price said security officials would not ban the devices on planes entirely unless there was intelligence that there was a specific threat, a view supported by other aviation security experts.

“If one is found, you’re going to see a nationwide crackdown on electronic devices,” Price said.

Aviation security advisers said how long any potential changes to the procedure would be kept in place would depend on intelligence about whether malicious actors were planning future attacks on passenger aircraft using devices such as pagers.

Some policies, such as liquid restrictions in carry-on luggage, have been in place for decades.

In other cases, attempted terrorist attacks have led to brief heightened security at airports. After a terrorist tried to detonate a bomb hidden in his underwear on a transatlantic flight in 2009, more extensive security procedures, including full-body pat-downs, were temporarily implemented for passengers who had recently traveled to or held passports from certain countries.

“TSA has the flexibility to change its security procedures, protocols and technologies at any time to respond to evolving threats,” said Keith Jeffries, vice president of the Security Screening Group at K2 Consulting, a Maryland-based consulting firm that focuses on security in air travel and other industries.

What are the risks of electronic devices on airplanes?

Electronic devices have been linked to past aviation disasters. In the Pan Am bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, in the 1980s, which killed more than 200 people, investigators believe a cassette recorder was used, based on post-crash findings.

“It’s likely that extremists have thought about this before,” said Tom Mockaitis, a professor at DePaul University who studies violent extremism and terrorism.

Will security scans change?

At airport security checkpoints, passengers are asked to remove large electronic items from their bags and have them scanned separately, but new airport scanners allow passengers to keep their devices in their carry-on bags.

When electronic items are removed from bags, scanners need to be able to detect whether the device contains explosives.

Price and Sheldon H. Jacobson, a professor of computer science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who studies aviation security, said it’s unclear whether one of the pagers would go off when brought onto a plane if the device were to pass through security.

“The critical thing is to make sure they don’t get on the plane,” Jacobson said.

Write to Jacob Passy at [email protected]